


unarmed on the battlefield

by walkthepiccadillycircus



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: -Ish, Angst, Canon Divergence, Jalec Gift Exchange 2017, M/M, Mission Fic, Parabatai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 12:44:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11967654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkthepiccadillycircus/pseuds/walkthepiccadillycircus
Summary: "Feelings are shifting like the tide."





	unarmed on the battlefield

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tiptoethrough](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiptoethrough/gifts).



> This is for Jalec Gift Exchange 2017 for the lovely tiptoethrough. I hope you enjoy! :D

Things had been tense, to put it mildly, since Jace’s return and even though he had been pardoned by the Clave, people were still wary of him and from the bond Alec could feel the feelings were mutual for his parabatai. Jace had been more closed off, _guarded_ , Alec could tell that there was something important that he wasn’t telling him. He knew he wouldn’t be able to help – Alec was sure it was troubling Jace, and he wanted nothing more than to be there for him – if that wall Jace had been building lately was still keeping Alec out as well. And if he were to be honest, Alec just missed Jace. He missed feeling Jace’s prominent presence through the bond. He missed seeing that fire of passion in those mismatched eyes.

Like a man on a mission, Alec intended to do just that, to connect with Jace again, and what could be a better way than a mission? So he went to Lydia and asked his Co-Head of the Institute to cover for him for a few hours, which she agreed to as soon as he said ‘mission with Jace’. The knowing look in her eyes was as understanding as she always had been, one thing Alec couldn’t thank her enough for. His next course of action was to pick a mission – it was easy enough since they were never running out of demon activities. The pointers were pretty clear; the demonic activity was in Manhattan, the blueprints of the area had been thoroughly studied, easy in, easy out. From what they gathered in the Ops Center, it was nothing Alec and Jace couldn’t handle.

Until it wasn’t.

Demonic foxes certainly fell in the list of Alec’s least favorite demon – with its nine tails, razor sharp fangs and claws, moving from spot to spot as quickly as Alec’s eyes could follow. He wouldn’t have enough time to aim and release his arrows before the creature could spring at him. Forgoing his trusted weapon, Alec followed Jace’s lead and reached for his blades, taking his place by his parabatai whose heightened speed had managed to take down two of the demons already. _Three left_ , Alec counted as he went for the one in Jace’s blind spot. He might not be as fast as Jace, but his reach was longer and his perfect aim allowed him to deliver cleaner attack.

Ashes and ichor blasted and covered his gear as Alec ran his blade through the fox’s throat. He was already taking on one of the two foxes left, when the creature’s tails spread like a fan and it screeched to the night sky.

The sound was almost deafening that both Shadowhunters had to cover their ears.

“Oh, you’re not serious.” He heard his parabatai voicing what was in his head and braced himself for what was to come.

Soon enough, they found themselves surrounded by a pack of demons, their eyes flashing in the dark alley. Both parabatai fell into position naturally, standing back to back with their weapons at the ready. And then, as if there was a soundless cue, they lunged at the same time the foxes pounced at them.

The sound of adamas clashing with teeth and claws filled the otherwise quiet night. Alec focused to make every single movement counted, slashing through two demons at once while deflecting from others.

He was just driving his blade through the demon’s head when he felt pain shot through his side and took him off guard. The pain was so sudden and extreme, crippling him for a few moments – _Jace_. His head snapped to where Jace was fighting, or had been, because his parabatai was falling to the ground, with his blade buried deep in the demon’s belly, bringing the creature of Hell down with him.

“Jace!” Alec screamed, running to his parabatai’s side, just in time to behead a demon that was a breath away from mauling Jace.

Alec was standing over Jace’s crumpling body, the urge to tend to him was a physical pain but he knew he couldn’t, not when there were still half a dozen demons in front of him. He barely had a second to firm his stance before two of them sprung at him, which he deflected before stabbing it from behind with one hand while his other hand managed to wound the demon’s tails.

It felt like forever, never-ending, but Alec stood his ground, viciously taking them down one by one. By the time he finished the last one, Jace had turned motionless, lying in a pool of his own blood.

“Jace, stay with me,” Alec ordered breathlessly, gathering his limp body close to his. His hands were already tracing the iratze on his parabatai’s middle.

“Jace, open your eyes.” He refused to think that he was too late, that the iratze was not doing anything. “Jace. Hey.” Alec held Jace’s face with one hand, shaking it a little because his parabatai _wasn’t waking up_.

“You’re not leaving me, dammit. Not like this.” The telltale sting of tears were pricking his eyes but Alec did not, could not, look any other way. As if those mismatched eyes would open if he’d just will them hard enough.

“Jace…” His voice broke, _desperate_ , and it vanished into shallow breaths and sobs.

_Angel, please, don’t take him away from me. Not Jace._ Alec prayed, pleaded to the Angel he had believed in his whole life as he pressed his lips to Jace’s brows. For once, he didn’t stop the mighty waves of love for his parabatai from flowing through their bond. For once, he let himself feel _everything_ and hope that the Angel would _listen_.

Horror was taking over his mind that he didn’t notice when a spark of blue fire igniting his parabatai rune, and only did when he was reaching for Jace’s matching one in desperation. The rune started to glow brighter as it burned and burned until it was nearly unbearable. Alec held Jace tighter, thinking this must be the end, this was where he was going to lose half of his soul, tears were streaming down his face and on to Jace’s face. Their foreheads were touching and lips no further than a breath as Alec endured the blinding pain, silently begging for his parabatai not to leave him ~~because he just got him back~~ , when Jace’s eyes shot opened, shining gold, and his body jolted from inhaling sharply.

Time stopped for Alec. He didn’t blink, he didn’t breathe. Jace’s eyes were closing again but the heartbeat Alec felt under his hand couldn’t be mistaken and it was more than enough for him to know it was real.

_Oh, Angel._

Like a switch being flipped on, his head went back to its full function, its sole focus was to bring Jace back to the Institute. He would worry later about the blue fire lighting up their bond, a sign of something Alec was familiar of from years and years of _fearing_ it, but he could not spare a single space in his mind for that. Not before he could get them – _get_ _Jace_ – to safety.

Forcing his hand not to tremble, Alec reached for his phone and called the one person he could count on. Izzy, thankfully, did not waste a second to get moving, because somehow a portal he’d never seen before appeared lighting up the whole alley less than a minute after he hung up. Alec felt an overwhelming relieve coursing through his nerves as he propped Jace’s weight on one side. Izzy rushed to them and immediately took the weight on the other side.

The pain from all of his injuries was starting to catch up on him but Alec was determined to bring Jace to the infirmary, not caring one bit about the trail of his own blood on the Institute floor. The infirmary was cleared and they laid Jace down on one of the stretchers.

“Alec, you need help, too.” He felt Izzy’s hand on his arm, trying to put him down on the stretcher right next to Jace. He didn’t want to be parted from his parabatai, but he found that he had no energy left to fight his sister.

Jace’s unconscious face was the last thing he saw before the oblivion claimed him as well.

\--- 

Alec opened his eyes to the familiar sight of the infirmary walls and the equally familiar pulse of the parabatai bond. The bond was steady, and already Alec felt tension leaving his body. He looked to his right, knowing with certainty that he was going to find his parabatai there, and breathed a little easier when he saw the rise and fall of Jace’s chest.

Slowly, he tried to sit up and noticed that he could barely feel any pain, just some soreness and bruises. He moved to Jace’s side and stood there, just taking him in. Yesterday had been a close call and although it hadn’t been the first time, the feeling of losing Jace to Valentine had been too fresh in his mind that it had felt ten times worse. It had shaken Alec to the core, reminding him with painful clarity just how important Jace was to him. Not that he ever forgot.

“Oh, Alec, you’re awake!” He heard his sister’s voice – and heels – as she entered the infirmary. She hugged him too tight for his sore muscle but Alec welcomed it wholeheartedly, pulling Izzy even closer.

“Thank you, Iz. If you hadn’t come…” Alec found that he couldn’t even continue the sentence. Couldn’t picture the outcome.

“Big brother, as if I would do anything less. Both of you are the most important people in my life,” Izzy said to his chest. Her eyes were shiny when they parted.

“How did you manage to open a portal so fast?” he asked, remembering the peculiar looking portal as they were standing close to Jace, with Izzy absently touched Jace’s shoulder.

“Clary created it. She was there with me when you called and suddenly got a vision. Just like that, she opened a portal out of thin air with a rune we’ve never seen,” she explained.

_Clary could make new runes?_ His head just started to list down every possible cause when Izzy interrupted his thoughts with a gentle hand on his arm. “Think about it later. You need your rest, first.”

To be honest, he was feeling fine, but with half of his mind still worrying about Jace, he didn’t think he’d do much good anyway. So he nodded. “Thanks, Iz.”

She smiled. “Well, I was just going to give you both iratzes, but since you’re up I think you can do it for him. It’ll work better anyway.” With that and a gentle squeeze on his arm, Izzy left.

His stele was already on his bedside table and he moved to take it, pulling Jace’s shirt up until he could see the iratze. With utmost gentleness and precision, he traced the tip of his stele over it on Jace’s abdomen. His other hand touched the rune that bonded the two of them, the rune that had saved them countless times. With his finger Alec followed the black lines, re-drawing the parabatai rune like he did a lifetime ago.

That was when a memory of the blue fire came back to him on full force, making him instinctively retract his fingers. Alec revisited the particular memory, now that he was not on the verge of losing a half of his soul he found his brain going ten different directions at once, every single one was laced with fear.

Despite the trepidation going inside his head, Alec braved himself and traced the parabatai rune on Jace’s skin once again with his fingers. He focused on it and the one he had on him, paying attention to anything that felt different no matter how subtle. He was expecting fire to set off, but the only thing he was feeling was the same pang of longing that had always been there whenever he touched Jace. Alec tried it once more, just to be sure, but nothing happened.

He couldn’t help the surge of relief as he let go of the breath he’d unconsciously been holding, although there was still the gnawing question as to what actually happened yesterday. _Maybe nothing_ , he told himself, _the Angel was being merciful_.

“He’s going to be fine,” a familiar female voice from across the room startled him, effectively broke his train of thoughts.

“I know,” he said to Lydia as the lady was walking toward him in her clean cut suit like always.

“I’m glad you both made it. No more going on mission without backup.” There was a genuine concern in her voice, which Alec appreciated.

“Agreed.” He nodded, silently conveying his thank you through his eyes. By the way Lydia smiled, he knew she understood.

“What happened while I was out?”                                                        

“Nothing I couldn’t handle. Take a day off, Alec. It’s okay.”

“No, it’s fine. I’m feeling better,” he said. Lydia was already about to disagree but he assured her quickly, “I don’t like doing nothing. I’ll just go through the reports.”

Lydia sighed, knowing that she already lost the debate. “Okay, then. Try not to push yourself too hard.”

Alec left the infirmary not long after Lydia, with a last look at Jace’s sleeping form. The sight of his office was grounding, a token of his life that made him feel more at ease, made him believe that everything was still the same. He was having the office to himself today, Lydia had said, as she needed to visit Idris.

Try as he might, Alec couldn’t fully concentrate when he was away from Jace. He probably had checked his watch a dozen times in the last three hours. After barely a half day of fighting it he gave up and went back to the infirmary. Everybody knew his parabatai was still there, he trusted them to look for him there should they need him. He pulled a chair by Jace’s side and started going over the tedious documents.

The bond flared up when he was halfway through a report. Alec looked up, coming closer as he saw his parabatai trying to open his eyes. The moment those mismatched eyes were uncovered, Alec’s heart unclenched and a little smile broke out on his face.

“Hey.”

Jace blinked once, twice – his eyes found Alec and something flashed in them before he croaked, “Alec. Are you okay?”

“Of course. How are you feeling?”

Jace made an unintelligible noise that sounded like a groan. Alec quickly gave him a glass of water and was ready to help him drink but Jace pushed it away. His parabatai gingerly lifted his hand, pawing at the air, before finding Alec’s hand. He held it and brought it down to his side with a long sigh.

Suddenly a rush of emotions filled Alec up faster than he could tamp it down, forming a lump in his throat and he was about to pull away when Jace’s hold firmed like an anchor.

“Alec,” he called, like he did a thousand times before, but Alec swore it wasn’t the same. His eyes found Jace’s beyond his control, and the intensity that he was met with brought a heavy tug to his heart.

Jace knew. He must feel it. _He mustn’t_.

Alec’s forbidden feelings for Jace were no longer a secret between the two of them, but after Clary, Alec had taken the broken heart with steel and decided that he had to move on. He thought he’d done well – until Jace was taken from him. It had been the darkest moment in his whole life and it’d brought not only the memories but also all of his love in its agonizing entirety back to surface. Yesterday’s incident was another nail to the coffin. There was no escaping it now.

But Alec wasn’t about to burden Jace with it. He’d had enough and what he needed was Alec, his parabatai, his brother, and that was what he would be for Jace. That was why he needed to get himself together, preferably sooner. But he couldn’t do it with Jace holding his hand, looking at him with those eyes.

“I’ll get Izzy. She’s crazy worried,” Alec said, gently extracting his hand and pointedly ignored the weak resistance from the other.

Alec had done it before, he’d do it again. He had to.

\---

If staying away from Jace before had made him restless, now it was pure torture. The distance between them brought him physical pain, the need to see him was so strong that it was only by herculean effort and hard-won determination that Alec managed not to visit the infirmary or check on Jace when he was cleared. He could barely hold it together whenever they crossed path in the Institute, Jace was not-so-discreetly showing that he wanted to talk, and by the Angel, that was the last thing Alec wanted to do.

But knowing his parabatai as well as he did, Alec wasn’t about to delude himself that he could hold Jace off for too long. Therefore when Jace caught him on the third day, Alec couldn’t say he was surprised.

“Alec, wait up,” Jace called out as he was opening the door to his room.

“I’m going to bed. Can it wait?” Alec knew it wouldn’t work, but he wanted to try.

“You’ve been avoiding me, Alec. No, it can’t wait.” He sounded annoyed, but also tired and probably as restless as Alec felt.

“What is there to talk about, Jace?” He turned around intending to go into his room but a strong grip on his arm stopped his movement.

“You know there is.” Jace was in his space. Their bodies were so close that Alec could feel Jace’s flaring breath, his body heat seeped through the fabric of their clothes.

The tension was hanging thickly in the air around them, and it wasn’t supposed to be unsettling but it _was_ , staggeringly so, because as soon as their eyes met it morphed into something else _entirely_ , the molten fire in Jace’s eyes made him gasp.

“Jace?”

That seemed to snap his parabatai back because he shook his head. “Damn it,” he cursed under his breath, before pushing Alec further into his room, locking the door with runes for good measure.

“Alec, I’m sorry,” Jace said, pain lacing his voice. “Something has changed with our bond since I woke up, and I know you must feel it too,” Jace added quickly, “It’s… because of me.”

Alec was confused. “What are you talking about?”

He watched Jace take a deep breath and it made him want to do the same. “When I almost died the other day, it felt like I was stuck in the middle of nowhere. I was lost. There was no one, nothing.”

“I thought I was going to drown in the nothingness and never find my way back, but then I felt this familiar warmth surrounding me like a blanket, warmth that couldn’t be anyone else’s but yours. I felt you.”

Every word was clear in his ears but Alec began to wonder if he was dreaming because there was no way that Jace was saying what Alec thought he was saying.

“You were everywhere. Well, it shouldn’t be so surprising I guess, since you’re the most important part of my life.” A small smile tugged at the corner of Jace’s mouth but he looked sad and Alec’s heart lurched at the sight. “I followed you from there and I was back.”

Once again Alec watched Jace take a deep breath. He might not be able to read Jace’s mind, but he could feel that they were _there_ , reaching the final point of their conversation despite his partial disbelief that this was happening.

Jace began again, vulnerable and stripped of all his bravado, “Seeing your face first thing… That was when I realized that… Things aren’t the same. For that, I’m sorry, Alec. I know it’s forbidden and you don’t have those feelings for me anymore – ”

“It was me,” Alec cut him off. He could not stand the misery in Jace’s face, not when it was actually his fault. “What you’re feeling, it was because of _my_ feelings. I was so terrified and all I could think about was how much – ” His throat closed off from years of _swallowing_ the particular words, but Alec soldiered on. “How much I love you.”

Blue and brown widened before him in the face of his confession.

“Blue fire appeared that night on both of our runes, and you know what that meant. I tainted our bond. I’m so sorry, Jace.” His shoulders slumped as he laid everything in the open. There was a pregnant silence for a long moment.

“You’re still…” Jace rasped. Alec nodded before Jace could even finish. Head hanging low, he welcomed the pain and the guilt like a companion and braced himself for whatever Jace decided to do.

He froze in shock when he found himself being hugged, his parabatai’s arm locking tightly around him and eliminating the space between them that he could feel Jace’s hammering heartbeat on his chest.

“Thank the Angel,” Alec felt Jace sighed into his neck, and he couldn’t help but melt into it. _He always did._ Alec knew he had to be the voice of reason, though he selfishly stole one more second before going against every fiber of his being and pushed Jace away.

“Are you even listening to me? What you’re feeling isn’t – ”

“Real? True? I’m telling you Alec, it’s the realest and truest thing I have ever felt in my life, and I have never been more certain about anything else,” Jace said fiercely, clearly ready to put up a fight to whatever argument Alec might have.

“It’s dangerous. We don’t know what will happen,” Alec said on the verge of desperation, a part of him begging for Jace to understand, but the other part was already calling for Jace like never before.

“Exactly, nobody knows what will happen. We never knew if those were even true. We can be different, Alec.”

“Jace.” The clear warning in Alec’s voice couldn’t be mistaken, but there was also an underlying of hope that wasn’t meant to be heard. “You know the law.”

His parabatai’s face softened at that, though with no less fervor. “I do, and I’d break every single one of them for you.”

Jace moved forward and put both of his hands on Alec’s nape. His touch was so gentle that it took Alec everything he had not to melt yet again and give in to it right there and then.

“This is a bad idea,” he said, trying to hold on to what little common sense left, but really, Alec knew he wasn’t going to manage for too long.

And there it was, the blinding smile that Alec had fallen in love with since he knew what love was, and now he saw what he never dared to dream he would, the fierce love in the blue-gold eyes looking up at him.

Alec let go of a long, shaky breath, with it all the restraint he might still have, and made his decision. He leaned forward and kissed Jace.

            _Finally_ , his heart sang.

Alec sighed into the kiss, thumb reverently caressing Jace’s face, every second felt more intense than before. The Angel could strike him right now and Alec still wouldn’t let go of his parabatai.

When they parted, Jace looked at him as if he was the sun and Alec couldn’t breathe. “I love you, Alec.”

“I love you.” _Always_ , Alec wanted to say but the emotions were clogging his throat, so he chose to show it to Jace instead by drawing him even closer and kissing all of the love he had into him.

Whatever was ahead of them, they’d face it together. Alec’s heart leaped at the word, because _together_ now carried a new meaning, an added layer to what it already had. It was always going to be them. Together. Always.


End file.
